Cabinet okays new education policy, HRD is now education ministry

July 29, 2020 47 Views No Comment

New Delhi, July 29 (agencies): The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the new National Education Policy (NEP) and renamed the HRD ministry as the education ministry, officials said.

A panel led by former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Kasturirangan had submitted the draft of the new NEP to Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ when he took charge last year.

The draft was then put in the public domain to seek feedback from various stakeholders and over two lakh suggestions were received by the HRD ministry about the same.

“The policy draft has been approved. The ministry has been renamed as education ministry,” a senior HRD ministry official said.

The existing NEP was framed in 1986 and revised in 1992. A new education policy was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto ahead of the 2014 general election.

The drafting experts also took into account the report of a panel headed by former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian and formed by the HRD ministry when it was being headed by Union minister Smriti Irani.

The new National Education Policy approved by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday is set to usher in a slew of changes with the vision of creating an education system that contributes directly to transforming the country, providing high-quality education to all, and making India a global knowledge superpower.

Some of the key highlights of the New Education Policy are:-

The policy aims to enable an individual to study one or more specialised areas of interest at a deep level, and also develop character, scientific temper, creativity, spirit of service, and 21st century capabilities across a range of disciplines including sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, among others.

It identifies the major problems facing the higher education system in the country and suggests changes such as moving towards multidisciplinary universities and colleges, with more institutions across India that offer medium of instruction in local/Indian languages, a more multidisciplinary undergraduate education, among others. The governance of such institutions by independent boards having academic and administrative autonomy has also been suggested.

Under the suggestions for institutional restructuring and consolidation, it has suggested that by 2040, all higher education institutions (HEIs) shall aim to become multidisciplinary institutions, each of which will aim to have 3,000 or more students, and by 2030 each or near every district in the country there will be at least one HEI.

The aim will be to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in HEIs including vocational education from 26.3 per cent (2018) to 50 per cent by 2035.

Single-stream HEIs will be phased out over time, and all will move towards becoming vibrant multidisciplinary institutions or parts of vibrant multidisciplinary HEI clusters.

It also pushes for more holistic and multidisciplinary education to be provided to the students.